Debbie Peterson sits in a stiff, straight-backed chair at the CBS Records office in Midtown Manhattan and fidgets nervously with her necklace. “I’m quite new to this,” she announces, as I set up my cassette recorder and prepare for the interview I’ve been waiting to conduct for most of the afternoon. “No one has ever really asked me questions about drums and drumming. I mean, I get a lot of questions about the Bangles. But no one ever wants to know about what kinds of things I do when I play, what equipment I use—you know, those sorts of questions that drummers ask other drummers.” “Until now,” I offer. Peterson and the rest of the Bangles, the all-female quartet out of L.A. that has become one of the hottest American groups to emerge this year, are in town to promote Different Light, their hit album, and to get accustomed to […]

October 1986 Issue